Noting BC-UNC

CHAPEL HILL —  You win with your fastball and you lose knowing the other team beat your fastball. That's coaching at its lowest common denominator.

Boston College got UNC's fastball on Saturday, a week after the Tar Heels lost with their changeup.

Hakeem Nicks is UNC's best player. Brandon Tate was but his injury leaves Nicks. That's a heckuva fall-back plan.

Butch Davis needed to figure out how to get Nicks more involved in the offense after Virginia effectively limited him with a constant double-team in last week's 16-13 overtime win in Charlottesville.

Nicks delivered the goods against a BC team that doesn't divert its scheme for anyone, even when an offense is short-handed like UNC's, missing Tate and ostensibly an effective second option in the passing game, although Brooks Foster (seven catches, 64 yards) is developing into that role.

Down 10-0 at the start of the second quarter, Nicks caught three touchdown passes in the second 15 minutes to pull the Heels out of their UVa hangover.

And they weren't just pitch-and-catch scores. 

On the first, Nicks jumped and pulled down a one-handed highlight catch, spun around two defenders and tip-toed into the end zone.

On the second, he just ran behind BC's secondary for a 40-yard TD.

And the third, he caught an in route and ran around, and through some arm tackles, BC's secondary for 43-yard TD which turned the game's momentum in UNC's favor after BC had exploited UNC's problematic 2-minute defense.

"He's a great player," BC linebacker Mark Herzlich said. "If we see him again, we're going to have to focus more on him."

Herzlich said BC did not double Nicks, preferring to play him with their contain defense. Mistake.

The benefit of doubling Nicks is two-fold:

1) It's harder to get open with two men in coverage (duh)

2) If Nicks does get by the first guy, the second man is over the top to prevent the big play.

The Hoos squeezed Nicks with double coverage. He caught six passes for 90 yards but didn't have a play over 23 yards. Nicks finished with 138 yards on eight catches against BC.

He also didn't carry the ball against UVa. Davis and offensive coordinator John Shoop used Nicks three times in the running game for 31 yards and a 12-yard touchdown.

Nicks isn't Tate, nor should he be used the same way. Davis wisely pulled Nicks from returning kicks. Good move. With injuries to Tate and quarterback T.J. Yates, there's no need to tempt the injury gods with Nicks.

But UNC's best option, even with the emergence of Shaun Draughn, is Nicks. They have to be more creative with him — send him in motion to avoid the bump off the line of scrimmage and line him up in the backfield to see if he'll be covered by a linebacker — because there probably won't be many plays in the final four games where Nicks doesn't see a double-team.

YATES OR SEXTON?: Interesting choice looming for Butch Davis. The target return date for T.J. Yates is Nov. 8, which is UNC's next game (Georgia Tech).

After Cam Sexton's clunker against UVa (two picks, 166 yards), it looked like Yates could walk right back into his starting spot.

But Sexton bounced back on Saturday with three TDs, 238 yards and no picks (although he did fumble which led to BC's first TD).

More importantly, the Heels are 4-1 with Sexton as the starter. Do you really yank a kid after he went 4-1 and risk the possibility of Yates not being 100 percent?

You ride the hot hand and worry about next year, next year, if the plan is stick with Yates in 2009.